dee B’s: a short-history of dee production methods of ‘50’s sci-fi films, why they even existed & why at that time???

This period is a fluke of history. This low-budget, Ed Wood school-of-filmmaking is best described as one-take wonders. A second-take was not possible, time is literally money. There is a scene in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, which sum up this era even better. Remember, Ed Wood in drag, goes to sell his Glen or Glenda? script to a local distributor/cinema owner. He is in his back office, of this dee cigar-smokin’ owner, and he barks out, “Here’s the script’s, it opens in a month, and by-the-way, here’s the poster!!!”

Here’s dee poster. What a hoot, I love it! These film did make a tidy profit traveling from one cinema to another, through dee network of independent cinemas owner in America – playing in small towns, cities and drive-in for a few days here and there.

In more ways then one, this era had its genesis in World War II. That war had trained many a 35mm cameramen, who after dee war were unemployed, and it was they that were dee heart of dee very small crew – and one of dee few that actually got paid. As well, the invention of sound cinema in 1927, with The Jazz Singer, wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. It enslaved dee camera to rolling sound-proof “rooms”, and always stuck in dee studio. To shoot on-location sound was unheard off, and from 1927-45-ish, was mechanically not possible. Then, out of nowhere comes dee Italian Neo-realist movement, and presto, teach dee film world that, yes, we now can shoot sound films on location. Not like today, with mics, field recorders, and a slate, but rather, invented dee art of [/i]dubbing[/i], today we would call it additional dialogue recording (ADR). The actor watches dee screen and lip-sync’s, by hearing dee guide track (if any), or lip-sync’ing, while having dee script in front of you. You don’t have to record actual location sound, and back in 1944, dee Italians filmmakers would have stenographers on set, recording any deviations from dee script, so that if that shot or take was used in dee final film, they would know what to write down for dee ADR script. That’s that in a nut-shell, for now!!!

Atom bomb of Hiroshima…….. little green men….. War of The Worlds radio broadcast in 1938? … dee cold war, dee space race and you could see why people couldn’t get enough of this stuff, especially dee youth. Too counter the growing popularity of these films, dee major studio started pumping out there own and polished version that not dee same. A classic of this period was MGM’s 1956 film Forbidden Planet, it’s too slick and very well done - I love this film. As to dee five films listed here, well, its schlock sci-fi, and pretty bad – in a good way. Its hard to imagine, but, in their day these films probably made more money than Citizen Kane (1941) – just check out dee grosses in these sci-fi listings.

For the record, most are shot on B&W, because its way cheaper to buy dee film stock, process it and do dee release prints.

_________________""Captain Beefheart vs. The Grunt People!" ... Zappa also said that if anyone had shown interest in the film five years ago, he would never have played rock and roll." - (R.S. mag: Oct 18/69)

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